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here are some notes i wrote during my playthrough of this.
at this stage, i couldn't really recommend playing this. there's roughly
1-2 hours of content here, some of it is decent, but yeah. there are still some
design issues aswell. an example being the lockpicking game, which will cause frustration.
although i don't share the sentiments of the reviewers. your movement speed is above that
of most RPGM games, and the maps on the small side. there also aren't many of them, so backtracking
through shouldn't be too tedius. you can also get a mount and some perks to drastrically increase speed
as for the H scenes. they are okay. most of them have no text or dialogue throughout.
they are all animated, and to an acceptable degree, but nothing outstanding. i think the standout one in my playthrough
was the sex scene with emma. the facial animations were fine, and the animation itself was fluid, with 3-5 different poses.
all of which were well done.
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opening exposition scene and world backstory is a little poorly written, vague, and doesn't offer enough to really set the scene
for the world you are playing in.
from watching it, the only thing you learn is that there was a battle that wiped out most males of multiple fantasy races+humans(so i guess they exist)
and that there's an "evil queen" called the dragon queen, who likes to burn people, and is called "mad queen" for some reason.
not a whole lot to go off.
modern outfits and clothing for characters in a fantasy world is incredibly boring. understandable though, as
whatever program, or asset pack used for the models and scenes probably didn't contain a big variety
dialogue is good. for the most part, it doesn't feel awkward, robotic, irrational or poorly written.
characters respond and say things that you would expect them to say.
stolen assets from TES:IV oblivion(GUI element)s, 2b/androids from Nier franchise, probably others
game crashed during tutorial sequence due to balloons something when saving at elf village.
can speed up animations, as well as text during cutscenes by holding Enter/space. works in all of them.
first sidequest to find a necklace assumes you already know the map, and locations. asks you to find a necklace
near a waterfall, but fails to tell you even the direction of the waterfall, let alone what map it's on.
direction should always be given when it makes sense that you should know, or that an npc would want to tell you,
through dialogue, internal thoughts or whatever. either that, or quest markers to point the way.
character should be able to sprint for longer. both for gameplay, and logical reasons. stamina drains way too quickly.
edit: you can get a perk later to decrease stamina drain. but i'm still not a fan. i guess the maps are quite small though.
sprites don't represent what you're fighting. example is the "bat" sprite, being a dire bear in the waterfall cave, which
gives poor indication of the threat you are dealing with. again, another limitation due to available assets. this time, using vanilla
RPGM ones.
Unable to attempt to flee from any battles i feel this should always be an option when it's not essential to the plot that you finish that fight. even if chances of success are slim
hard locks require you to bug all tumblers to the top and hold sprint to succeed, which is too awkward for those with less coordination, patience, or lag.
if there's a skill that makes this easier to achieve, then that's fine. otherwise it's needlessly frustrating for anyone who isn't able to perform
the challenge. i personally only broke 1 lock, and had little issues. but thought it needed mentioning
exploration offers some rewards, such as finding key items necessary in quests for example.
quest "raid on the village" in quest log way before it happens
uses obtuse Adventuregame elements that should have been introduced in the tutorial before being expected in game.
like time of day and Quest completion based NPC, or event availability. The example i'll give is the first i encountered, being
the nymph who returns the ladies necklace "near the waterfall". without knowing that some NPCs may appear after a certain point, it'd be unreasonable to expect
a player to check the wilderness which seemingly has no purpose whatsoever, beyond a near impossible early game fight with a basilisk, for example.
most games don't have these mechanics, so when your game does, especially when it plays an integral part, it needs to be explained and shown.
H scenes could use some dialogue during to really add to the scenes. and the little dialogue there could
probably be a bit more interesting, and a bit more tailored for each encounter. the animations in alot of scenes are quite basic, but doesn't feel awkward or
take you out of the experience.
not a fan of vanilla RPGM linear class leveling. i don't mind the interesting adventure game style stats thing you got going though, where discovering different things, or
performing certain events nets you stats. and the Hack'n'slash style skill tree thing is something i also don't like, but i know others do. same could be said for the battle system, which as of present, offers no abilities to break up monotony. i'm also not a huge fan of
vanilla RPGM combat in general.
2b H scene runs perfectly smooth. all others cause fps to tank and PC to fry.
iron will seems both impossible to activate during combat, and doesn't offer a passive buff against the succubus's charms. my chars defence is high enough he can't even damage himself, and with the charm from the church, he can't die either
I held down enter and let the battle play out for about 2 minutes just to confirm. and i was charmed the whole time. bad luck? maybe. but i doubt it.
Adda repeats "hi henry, could you help me with neclace?". i'm not sure if this is supposed to be a quest or something else. but it's confusing
on that note. there's also NPC's whose dialogue doesn't update to properly reflect the current state of affairs(can't remember which), and also
the bounty board doesn't update either(your char still mentions that gorluk or w/e his name is should be killed, even post-gorluck dead).
Quest items aren't removed on quest completion. example being the healing potions you make at the church.
I like the fact that in some quests and events they offer you a dichotomy or sometimes more options which affect the outcome of that event, and also affect involved characters, and the availability of other content
only thing i'd really like to see is some flavour options aswell, so i feel more like i'm playing a character, rather than watching a cutscene, or prompting an npc/trigger.
fair amount of NPC's are non-interactible. don't know if that's objectively a negative. but it's something i personally don't really like
alrighty. finally going to stop my playthrough here.
gametime 4 hrs, 20 minutes
level 7
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incomplete quests and content
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haven't given sarah the wine for the future of our "relationship"
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haven't gotten either emily or jessica to "respect" me
quest takes Multiple weeks. If i decide to play this in the future, then i'll wait until theres more content to justify me spending
weeks in-game. I don't like to pointlessly skip large amounts of in-game time.
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saved valeria, but haven't interacted with her in "deep sleep", as the guide says. i'm assuming i need to find the valerian root or w/e, to make the sleeping potion.
or i need to visit her at night. but i couldn't really be bothered
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haven't done the Neutral, or help the orc chieftain roots during the attack. again, theres not enough here so far to motivate me to do so. i'll probably end up doing the orc
route as my main playthrough after this has way more content, and if i decide to continue playing.
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haven't killed succubus